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Courtney Vallejo interviews Catholic mom Maggie Jetty, creator of faith-based, eco-friendly wooden toys.

I recently sat down with Catholic mom Maggie Jetty to talk about her faith-based educational and eco-friendly wooden toy company, Saintly Heart. These wonderful toys were an instant hit with my children, even for my older 11- and 12-year olds. My 7-year old son loved the St. Joseph’s Workshop collection and enjoyed imagining with toys. My older ones sat down with the Franciscan Friends Lacing set. Being named after St. Francis and St. Clare, they were instantly drawn to it. 

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What’s the mission of Saintly Heart?

To provide faith-based educational wooden saint toys to help foster a love for Jesus and the saints in a fun and natural way -- through play! 

Why saint toys?

I believe that if we teach our children about saints, even before they begin to talk, especially through play, our children will become obsessed with saints. The saints will become their superheroes, role models and true friends. Playing with the saint toys, can also help our children enter into a deeper spiritual life. After all, our slogan on all our packaging is “Pray and Play, Fun with your Heavenly Friends.”  

Also, I know that kids learn through play so what we surround them with is important. As a mother, I made a conscious effort alongside my husband, to introduce the saints to my children before they could talk through books and by creating my own toys for them. I really didn’t learn about the Saints until I was an adult and I wanted to make sure my kids knew of these amazing Christian role models who went before us and who are interceding and cheering us on because we need their help and example in life. 

Seeing my kids learn about the saints inspired me to share the faith with other families and children through the best way kids learn-through play. I saw the need for faith based toys and set out to make them. Through prayer, this passion grew to find a way to share these toys on a larger scale, so not only for my own children but for all children, for all families to be able to have the ability to have quality, affordable and meaningful Christian toys in their homes.  

What does your toy line offer?

We currently have 6 products and are really excited about our two newest toys!  

Our St. Joseph’s Workshop chunky puzzle includes St. Joseph and a variety of his woodworking tools. It comes with a story/prayer card and a tray to hold all the puzzle pieces.  

Our Franciscan Friends Lacing Set includes St. Francis, St. Clare, 11 woodland animals, a lacing rod with string and a forest playmat.  

Our current saint collector sets come with the saint dolls and a holy card to match each saint.

  • The Totus Tuus set which features Our Lady of Fatima, St. Pope John Paul II and St. Dominic Savio. 
  • The World Charity set, which includes St. Mother Teresa, St. Padre Pio and St. Blaise.
  • The Bold Women of Faith set has St. Joan of Arc, St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Gemma Galgani.
  • We also have our single box of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

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How did Saintly Heart start?

The idea came to me during prayer time. It was around 5 AM one morning in December of 2018, and I was asking God for guidance on if and how I could grow a saint based toy company. I had been painting peg saint dolls and had a shop on Etsy, but I could no longer keep up with the demand for saint orders between being a wife, a mother and full time school based speech pathologist. I asked God to show me how to fulfill people’s desires to have these saints in their children’s hands. Not only were people ordering them for their own children, but adults were ordering for a variety of other reasons. People were ordering them for their kids away at college, for their parish priests and as Sacrament gifts. Others were ordering them for their desks at work or windowsill at home as a reminder of that saint’s intercession and love for God. Grandparents also loved giving them to their grandchildren. I wanted a way to still be able to get saints into the hands of loved ones. 

Since hand painting was no longer an option due to the time constraints, I still wanted to offer affordable toys. So through prayer I was inspired to look into manufacturing the toys. It was a pretty crazy idea because I had no clue where to start. I didn’t have a background in toy making or business, my background was in being a mom, speech and language development and education. But God inspired me and led me to the right people who helped open the door to manufacturing our toy line. I still hand paint the original of each toy, which then gets turned into a digital image for toy production.


Tell us about your own family.

I am originally from California but live in Arizona. My husband and I have been married for 11 years and we have four children. I am a full-time pediatric Speech Language Pathologist in the schools.  

What is your favorite thing about running Saintly Heart?

I love hearing from both adults and children about their experience with the toys. I really enjoy receiving emails, photos and videos of kids playing with their saint toys. I love seeing how much kids like their saint toys and hearing the different ways they are interacting with them.  

What is your advice for moms who are trying to raise Catholic kids?

We need to remember the importance of introducing the saints to our children at an early age. Help your child learn about them through fun and engaging ways. What we buy our children is what they play with and kids learn through play, so get them a set of saint toys. At our house, our saints play on our kid’s regular toys too like in my daughter’s dollhouse or my boys’ Batmobile. The saints have become part of their daily lives.  

Where can we find Saintly Heart toys?

You can find our toys on our website, but we also encourage you to ask your local Catholic gift shop for them, we are already in many Catholic shops across the U.S. and if we aren’t in your local one, we can be, just ask the shop to carry the Saintly Heart toy line. 

You can keep in touch with Saintly Heart on Instagram @saintly_heart and the Saintly Heart Facebook page, as well as through their website, SaintlyHeart.com.

Special offer: 

Saintly Heart is offering 20% off for our Catholicmom.com followers. Use the promo code CATHOLICMOM through Dec. 31, 2020 on their website, SaintlyHeart.com

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Saintly Heart toys can help foster a love for Jesus and the saints in a fun and natural way -- through play! #catholicmom

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Copyright 2020 Courtney Vallejo
Images courtesy of Saintly Heart. All rights reserved. Used with permission.